John McCullagh talks with Robin Rhodes of ACT about his agency’s monthly educational workshops for people living with HIV - workshops that are now webcast across Canada and around the world.

For those of us who work or volunteer in the HIV sector, there are often opportunities to attend workshops and conferences about new developments in HIV prevention and treatment and, for those of us living with HIV, on managing our heath in all of its dimensions - physical, emotional and spiritual. For most other HIVers though, such opportunities are not as readily available, due to cost, time, location or inclination.
This is where the Community Health Forums put on by the AIDS Committee of

John McCullagh shares the recipe for a classic English dessert for hot summer evenings.

Grocery stores and farmers’ markets are currently overflowing with currants and berries. So now’s the time to take advantage of this abundance and make yourself one of the easiest and tastiest of all summertime desserts - summer pudding.
Summer pudding originated in Victorian England as a healthier final course to a meal than pastry desserts. It’s also much easier to make than it appears, in fact it’s perfect for beginners in the kitchen. And it will, without doubt, impress your dinne

John McCullagh reviews the documentary film Vito, about the life and legacy of pioneering and charismatic LGBT and AIDS activist and author Vito Russo.

The past year has seen the release of a number of remarkable HIV-related documentaries. They include How to Survive a Plague, which guest author Jim Swimm commented on in our pages, and another telling of the story of AIDS activism in the 1980s, United in Anger, A history of ACT UP. Both of these docs were screened at the Toronto LGBT film festival earlier this year, as was Positive Youth, the Canadian-made movie that I reviewed here. More recently released was another Canadian doc, Voice

Access to secure and affordable housing is a key determinant for the health and well-being of people living with HIV. Keith Hambly, executive director of Fife House in Toronto, talks on video about how his agency is responding to this need.

More people are living with HIV today than ever before. In Toronto, it’s estimated that one in 120 people are HIV-positive, with two people being newly diagnosed every day. Alarmingly, these numbers are likely an underestimate as it’s thought that up to one-third of all people living with HIV are unaware of the fact, as they haven’t been diagnosed.
While antiretroviral drugs mean people with HIV are living longer, they aren’t necessarily living better. Indeed many, including men, wo

John McCullagh talks with Marco Posadas about TowelTalk, a bathhouse counselling program that seeks to address the psychosocial issues that have an impact on HIV risk for gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men.

For many years, outreach workers and volunteers from community-based organizations have worked with bathhouses to provide HIV and STI awareness, prevention and education services to bathhouse patrons. ACT, a Toronto ASO, has augmented these sexual health promotion activities through TowelTalk. This innovative program offers brief, walk-in counselling sessions in the bathhouse by professionally trained counsellors. The objective is to address the psychosocial issues that can have an i

John McCullagh reviews a new cinema verité documentary about what it’s like to be young and living with HIV.

The Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival is now 22 years old. I remember the early years, when a gay film festival was considered too much of an outrage for many a conservative city councillor to support. Today, despite being the most popular film festival in town after the internationally renowned Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the traditional message of greeting from our mayor, who seems frightened by anything gay, remains conspicuously absent. Nevertheless, corporate and gover

In this article, CATIE explores why recently infected individuals are more likely to transmit HIV to others and how we can help prevent these transmissions from occurring.

"Recently infected individuals: A priority for HIV prevention" by James Wilton first appeared in Prevention in Focus, Fall Issue 2011, a publication of CATIE. A French language version is available here.
People living with HIV can potentially transmit HIV to others through unprotected sex at any time during their life. However, emerging research suggests that a disproportionate number of HIV transmissions—perhaps more than half—may originate from people during the first few months aft

Today on PositiveLite.com, three young gay men write about how an an investment in their futures by Vancouver’s Totally Outright program literally changed their lives. This is how we create the gay community leaders of tomorrow.

(left to right Keith Reynolds, Daniel McGraw, Darren Ho)
Earlier this year on PositiveLite.com, we profiled Totally Outright, a program for young gay men who show promise as future community leaders. Today, in a special series of articles by three graduates of the program, we hope to show how, by investing in these and similar young men, we’re able to ensure that the future of Canada’s gay community will be in good hands.
The uplifting stories of Daniel McGraw, Keith Reynolds and Darren

At the recent Gay Men’s Sexual Health Summit in Toronto, John McCullagh interviewed Jody Jollimore of Vancouver’s Health Initiative for Men about the need to inform gay guys about the acute stage of HIV infection.

New research suggests that a disproportionate number of HIV transmissions - perhaps more than half - may originate from people during the acute stage of HIV, which is the first few months after someone is infected. Why? Because HIV replicates very quickly immediately after infection so a person is much more likely to pass on the infection at this stage if they’re having unprotected sex. And they’re more likely to think they’re negative.
Health Initiative for Men (HiM), a gay men’s hea

Bob Leahy and John McCullagh travelled to Oshawa to attend the 2012 Durham Regional HIV/AIDS Conference. Their mission was to report back on the women-and-HIV issues that were a prominent part of the program. Here is Bob’s report.

Sometimes we worry here on PositiveLite.com that we are a bit gay-centric. Our founder, publisher and editor are all gay men, and while we have three active women writers, we have far more male ones. But that’s not to say that, first, we don’t have a huge curiosity about women and HIV and secondly we aren’t committed to writing about women’s issues. So when Publisher John McCullagh and myself travelled to Oshawa recently to attend the 2012 Durham Regional HIV/AIDS Conference we d